MCALESTER, OKLAHOMA – A McAlester police officer is now facing disciplinary action after using a Taser on a woman in custody.

Surveillance video from the June incident shows Nakina Williams was handcuffed at the Pittsburg County Jail Complex after being arrested on a public intoxication complaint.

She appeared to be mouthing off when she suddenly spit on one of the officers.

The video shows the officer pulling out a Taser and firing it at Williams. Officer Sterling Taylor was seen circling Williams while the probes were still on her for a little more than minute.

“Obviously spitting in the face is inexcusable,” said the American Civil Liberties Union Board Member William H. Hinkle.”The only justification for him tasering her is if she was somehow able to physically attack him in some way that looked capable of injuring him seriously. I don’t know how she could have done that with her hands cuffed behind her back.”

The department ultimately found Taylor violated the McAlester Police Department’s policy for handling Tasers. Taylor has been placed on a two week unpaid suspension, and will have to undergo more training, according to documents obtained by Tulsa’s Channel 8.

The Police Department declined an interview saying they could not comment because Taylor has the right to an appeal.

Major Shannon Clark with the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office wouldn’t comment specifically on the case, but the Taser instructor said Tulsa County’s training program instructs officers that Tasers can’t be used in retaliation.

MUSCOGEE, OKLAHOMA – A Muskogee High School campus police officer was arrested after leading Muskogee police on a brief chase.

Douglas Ragsdale, 44, was arrested on complaints of eluding police and possession of a firearm during commission of a felony.

Muskogee police Lt. Bobby Lee said officers responded to a disturbance call at the Kum & Go at North Country Club Road and Shawnee Bypass just after 9 p.m. Tuesday.

Police were notified the drivers of a red pickup and silver pickup had been in an argument, Lee said. When officers arrived at the gas station, the silver pickup was gone, and Ragsdale was entering the red pickup.

Lee said Ragsdale then drove west on Shawnee Bypass, and did not stop when officers turned on their emergency lights. Ragsdale ran through a red light before pulling over into the Bacone Inn parking lot, where the silver pickup was stopped.

Lee said Ragsdale exited the vehicle and officers noticed he was holding a handgun. Ragsdale then entered his pickup and holstered the handgun.

Lee said Ragsdale told police he was campus security, and officers believed Ragsdale meant he was Bacone campus security.

“They later learned he was not Bacone campus security,” Lee said. “But that he was Muskogee High School campus security.”

Lee said the patrol officer’s report stated the driver of the silver pickup had not been arrested. The report did not indicate what the alleged disturbance had been about, Lee said.

A Muskogee County/City Detention Facility employee said Ragsdale was in the facility, but no bond had been set on Ragsdale as of Wednesday afternoon.

Muskogee school district police chief Dan Hall confirmed Ragsdale is a campus officer. Hall said the matter is a personnel issue.

OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA – Two men caught flipping for money have to cough up cash for not having a city-issued permit. Oklahoma City police arrested the men for panhandling at N.W. 122nd Street and Penn.

But they weren’t just begging. They were doing tricks.

“It is kind of like an exchange. It may be something we do people like it and they help us out,” said Cody Lamb, who was arrested.

The two men performed several flips until a police officer stopped the show, handcuffed them and put the men in the back of the squad car. Lamb said he was confused.

“I just asked what was going on? Please let me know what was going on. I have a wife and a baby that I am trying to take care of. I have a baby on the way it’s hard to get by in this world with just one job,” Lamb said.

His brother-in-law agrees.

“It does seem completely ridiculous to me to be arrested for doing backflips,” said Jesse Hertz. “I wasn’t getting in anyone’s way. I was staying on the median perfectly. I wasn’t demanding money. I was just walking around with a sign and people can roll own their windows and hand me money if they want.”

The two said they were earning money like kids washing for cars for cash, but the arresting officer said it wasn’t the same. Oklahoma law says they need a permit.

TULSA, OKLAHOMA – Tulsa Police Chief Chuck Jordan addressed media Saturday afternoon and reminded about a promise he made 18 months ago to clean up the force and bring down offenders on the inside.

“There is no thin, blue line in this department that protects its own,” Jordan said.

As earlier reported by News On 6, a joint investigation by TPD and the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics ended in the arrest of a TPD officer.

According to a police report, an undercover sting was staged Friday evening by the two agencies, and TPD officer Marvin Blades Jr., 37, was arrested on a second-degree robbery complaint. Police said the investigation was “ongoing for several months,” and Blades is suspected of targeting many Hispanics for traffic stops and stealing their money.

Jordan said peer-reporting was a huge factor in netting Blades’ arrest. Fellow officers on the street witnessed what they deemed suspicious behavior by Blades, and an investigation began, he said.

The arrest report says Blades pulled over an OBN agent in an undercover vehicle about 10 p.m. on Friday in the 2800 block of North Lewis Avenue. Blades used his assigned TPD patrol car and pulled over the undercover agent and “was armed with a Glock .40-caliber pistol and was in the Tulsa Police uniform with badge,” the report says.

When Blades approached the agent, he instructed the agent to leave his wallet in the seat and go to the back of the vehicle. Blades then went to the front of the vehicle, near the wallet, before allowing the agent to leave the traffic stop, investigators said.

When the undercover agent returned to the cab of his vehicle, he found six documented $100 bills missing from the wallet, according to the report.

Officers involved in the operation continued surveillance on Blades until just after 2 a.m. on Saturday, when they felt he could be arrested in a safe manner, the report says.

An arresting officer found cash in Blades’ right pants pocket, police said. Blades reportedly told police the money belonged to his wife, but detectives matched the serial numbers to the bills used in the sting.

Friday night’s events matched details of multiple reported robberies alleged to have been carried out by Blades, the report says.

Blades was assigned to TPD’s Gilcrease Division at the time of the robbery, police said. He was released on $25,000 bond, but remains on suspension with pay. Blades has been employed by TPD off and on since 1997.

TPD believes there are more victims who haven’t come forward because of fear. Those who believe they are victims in Blades’ alleged scheme are asked to call TPD at 918-596-9137.

Blades Jr. is son of former cop who reportedly lied about traffic stop

Blades is the son of Marvin Blades Sr., a former longtime TPD officer who once served on the force’s gang unit and also had a high-profile controversy within the department.

A search of News On 6 archives shows that north Tulsa citizens were upset and the NAACP called for the then-police chief’s resignation over a 12-day suspension of Blades Sr. in 1995. They claimed it, and his subsequent reassignment to another division, amounted to racial discrimination because Blades Sr. “stood up for black officers’ rights,” archives show.

However, an investigation by TPD Internal Affairs showed Blades Sr. was suspended for lying about a traffic stop and identifying someone as a gang member in public.

“Christopher Cox was shot and killed by a gang member on May 11, 1994,” News On 6 reported in 1995. “Tulsa gang officer Marvin Blades [Sr.] later showed a videotape of Cox’s funeral at a seminar and said Cox was a gang member. Cox’s family said that’s a lie. Internal Affairs officers asked Blades about it and found he couldn’t prove Cox was a gang member.”

Documents showed there were two reasons Blades Sr. believed Cox was a gang member — because he saw a tattoo on Cox’s arm and because he and fellow officer Bill Purifoy pulled over Cox in a traffic stop a few years before.

However, the medical examiner’s report said there was no tattoo on Cox, and a sworn affidavit from Purifoy said he never participated in a traffic stop.

Then-TPD Chief Ron Palmer told News On 6 that Blades Sr. got into trouble when he started making up things to cover his story about Cox, archives show.

“There’s an expectation, especially when we go to go court, that we tell the truth and anything we talk to the public, about whatever, that we’re telling the truth,” Palmer said in 1995. “We seek out people who tell the truth to be police officers.”

Court records show Blades Sr. filed suit against the City of Tulsa in 1995 in an appeal of the suspension, but it was later dismissed. He was eventually given back his job on the gang unit, according to News On 6 archives.

Blades Sr. served for nearly 30 years at TPD and is currently employed as an officer with Tulsa Public Schools.

PRAGUE, OKLAHOMA – There’s a bit of diploma drama going on between a local high school and that school’s valedictorian.

David Nootbaar is furious his daughter’s school is keeping her diploma.

He said, “She has worked so hard to stay at the top of her class and this is not right.”

Kaitlin Nootbaar graduated from Prague High School, the Red Devils, in May and was named valedictorian.

When tasked with writing the graduation speech, her dad said she got her inspiration from the movie “Eclipse: The Twilight Saga.”

Nootbaar said, “Her quote was, ‘When she first started school she wanted to be a nurse, then a veterinarian and now that she was getting closer to graduation, people would ask her, what do you want to do and she said how the hell do I know? I’ve changed my mind so many times.’”

He said in the written script she gave to the school she wrote “heck,” but in the moment she said “hell” instead.

Nootbaar said the audience laughed, she finished her speech to warm applause and didn’t know there was a problem.

That was until she went to pick up the real certificate this week.

“We went to the office and asked for the diploma and the principal said, ‘Your diploma is right here but you’re not getting it. Close the door; we have a problem,’” Nootbaar said.

He said the principal told Kaitlin she would have to write an apology letter before he would release the diploma.

A move her dad believes is illegal.

“She earned that diploma. She completed all the state curriculum. In four years she has never made a B. She got straight A’s and had a 4.0 the whole way through.”

Kaitlin starts college in a few days on a full scholarship, making the administrators’ decision even more appalling to her family.

We tried to get the school’s side of the story.

Superintendent Dr. Rick Martin said in a statement, “This matter is confidential and we cannot publicly say anything about it.”

Kaitlin doesn’t plan on writing an apology letter because she doesn’t feel she did anything wrong.